The eight-fold path of blissful living or Ananda Ashtanga!

Living in bliss
– The eight-fold path of blissful living or Ananda Ashtanga

These are:

1.  Blissful Laughter
2.  Blissful Affirmation
3.  Blissful Cleansing
4.  Blissful Yoga
5.  Blissful Meditation
6.  Blissful Tools
7.  Blissful Energy
8.  Blissful Chant

Ananda Ashtanga or Blissful Living is a simple eight-fold pathway to Living Enlightenment. These are simple techniques that take you into the experience directly without the need to understand and absorb.

Blissful Laughter

Laughing meditation or Haasya Dhyana Meditation

As soon as you wake up in the morning, even before you get up from your bed, laugh for five minutes! Continue reading “The eight-fold path of blissful living or Ananda Ashtanga!”

Nithya Dhyaan meditation technique

This is a five-step technique, each step being 7 minutes.

1. Chaotic breathing

Duration: 7 minutes

Sit in vajrasana (sitting with the knees folded and your feet tucked under, with the bottom resting on the heels). Normally in our body, the energy flows from the sahasrara chakra (crown center) to the muladhara chakra (root center). Vajrasana posture helps reverse this flow and supports the upward movement of energy. Continue reading “Nithya Dhyaan meditation technique”

Innocence means purity of the inner space, not being affected by thoughts or engraved memories

Constantly, we are asked to be good, to be pure, and to be innocent. The idea of innocence is forced upon us. Constantly we are taught by society, by moralists, that something is right, something is wrong, something is pure, something is impure, something is good, and something is bad, something is innocent and something is corrupted. Constantly we are taught the idea of good and bad. We are forced to practice something that is good or what society thinks is good. But life is no way related to what society believes in. Life is totally different. What society believes is different from what life is.

There is a beautiful saying, ‘When you think, you think in a generalized way. But when you live, you can’t generalize.’ This is like what they say in marketing, ‘Think globally but act locally.’ Situations can’t be generalized. In your life there are so many things where generalization is not possible, where you can’t decide what to do and what not to do based on popular guidelines. All your ideas about morality, about right and wrong, might not have any relevance practically.

Somebody asked me, ‘Swamiji, why do our ancient Hindu scriptures not speak of gambling? Only the epics speak about gambling. Continue reading “Innocence means purity of the inner space, not being affected by thoughts or engraved memories”

Innocence means purity of the inner space, not being affected by thoughts or engraved memories

Constantly, we are asked to be good, to be pure, and to be innocent. The idea of innocence is forced upon us. Constantly we are taught by society, by moralists, that something is right, something is wrong, something is pure, something is impure, something is good, and something is bad, something is innocent and something is corrupted. Constantly we are taught the idea of good and bad. We are forced to practice something that is good or what society thinks is good. But life is no way related to what society believes in. Life is totally different. What society believes is different from what life is.

There is a beautiful saying, ‘When you think, you think in a generalized way. But when you live, you can’t generalize.’ This is like what they say in marketing, ‘Think globally but act locally.’ Situations can’t be generalized. In your life there are so many things where generalization is not possible, where you can’t decide what to do and what not to do based on popular guidelines. All your ideas about morality, about right and wrong, might not have any relevance practically.

Somebody asked me, ‘Swamiji, why do our ancient Hindu scriptures not speak of gambling? Only the epics speak about gambling. Continue reading “Innocence means purity of the inner space, not being affected by thoughts or engraved memories”

When you live intensely, automatically you will be liberated. If you don’t live any moment intensely, what happens?

You cannot feel fulfilled by offering sense pleasures to the senses. Living intensely does not mean fulfilling your senses, pouring pleasures into your senses, or living as you wanted.

Somebody asked me, ‘Since bondage and liberation is relative, why not just eat, drink and be merry?’

That is perfectly all right. Be intense. That’s all.

Eat intensely. When you are eating, only eat.

When you are sleeping, just sleep.

When you are drinking, only drink.

When you are making merry, just be merry.

Master’s words should be understood completely, with intensity and clarity, not superficially.

If you can be merry, you don’t need anything else. The whole problem is because you can’t really be merry. That is why you need so much of teachings and ideas about liberation. See, that’s why here you think, ‘Why not just eat, drink and be merry?’ You think it’s very easy.

No! Continue reading “When you live intensely, automatically you will be liberated. If you don’t live any moment intensely, what happens?”

When you experience intuition, not only you get the intellectual clarity, but you also get enough power to execute it!

Let me now describe how a mind-body system that is free from samskaras will improve intuition and innovation.

Intuition is a wonderful subject. If you ask modern day CEOs, how they took major decisions in their lives, what caused the turning point in their lives, again and again their answer surprises us. Again and again they tell us that their success came from something beyond their intellect, something that gave them the energy or the guts to take the decisions. This is not just the case with successful CEOs, it is the same with scientists also.

The other day I had a chance to have lunch with Dr Charles Townes.

I asked him ‘Sir, how did your discovery happen? How were you able to do it?’

He answered in a beautiful way, ‘I was just sitting in a park in Washington DC; suddenly something happened. The conclusion was there in me. Suddenly the conclusion was revealed to me. I penned down what I experienced. Now I had a big difficulty. I had the conclusion but not the steps. I was not able to present this to anybody else because I knew only the conclusion, I didn’t know the steps.’

This happened not only with Charles Townes , it had also happened with Albert Einstein. He says, ‘Whatever new happened to me, came through intuition and not through intellect.’ He summed it up beautifully, saying, ‘ Continue reading “When you experience intuition, not only you get the intellectual clarity, but you also get enough power to execute it!”

The more the number of engrams, the more clouded is our thought process, and the lower is the productivity!

So much has been written and said about productivity in organizations. Productivity has become the mantra in organizations for the last two or three decades. As a result of invention of computers and new communications technologies such as the internet and cell phone, the world has become a much smaller place. While there has been an increase in productivity in companies, it has often come at a huge price on the health (physical and mental) and well being of the employees.

Let us now start to understand what is productivity and how productivity can be enhanced without the side effects of stress.

In simple terms, productivity can be measured as:

Productivity = Output / Input

The measure of output may be certain number of tasks completed by a particular individual or team or revenue in the case of a manufacturing company. The measure of input may include the number of hours worked on a particular project, manufacturing costs etc. Billions of dollars are spent by companies globally to enhance human productivity. Most of these efforts are centered on providing new skills specific to training in a particular area of the organization’s focus or improving technology such as use of computers, internet or other forms of media and communications. Some companies also invest in developing ‘softer skills’ such as interpersonal skills, team building skills, etc. But most of these trainings tend to address the conscious mind, actions, behaviors and perceptions that are just on the surface. But over 90% of our emotions and behaviors reside deep under the surface of our mind. This is what the psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud, calls the unconscious mind.

There is a whole range of emotions and experiences that are embedded in the unconscious level. This is where the samskaras or engraved memories reside.

Continue reading “The more the number of engrams, the more clouded is our thought process, and the lower is the productivity!”

How does the mind work ? What are engrams or samskaras ? How do they influence our being ?

What do I mean by the word, ‘state of the leader’?

A true leader is a person who is ready to take responsibility consciously, who is ready to handle life consciously, who is not constantly dependent on the past or his memory. If you are dependent on your memory, if you are dependent on the past to take decisions, please be very clear, you will be a follower. You cannot be a leader. Responding spontaneously to situations is what I call responsibility. A responsible leader is a person who is able to respond spontaneously to situations, who is fresh and continuously keeps himself alive, who is not caught in the past.

Let us understand how the mind works – how we receive data, process it and make decisions.

For example, you are seeing something through your eye. Of course, you receive information through all the five senses – eyes, ears, nose, tongue and touch. Continue reading “How does the mind work ? What are engrams or samskaras ? How do they influence our being ?”

Once energy layers open up and get healed, you experience a glimpse of god within you!

Our meditation program, Inner Awakening journeys you through your own life, simultaneously revealing the secrets of death. It makes your inner space pure and clean by unloading the baggage of emotions that you usually carry with you. It teaches you to … Continue reading Once energy layers open up and get healed, you experience a glimpse of god within you!

What exactly happens at the time of leaving the body during death?

This question cannot be answered by a living person as he has not experienced death. It cannot be answered by a dead person since he cannot come back to narrate the experience. Only an enlightened being, a person who has gone through death consciously and come back anew, can exactly explain what happens during death.

I am going to reveal the mystery of death now. This may be surprising, even shocking to many of you. But this is the truth. Whether you believe it or not, accept it or not, this is what happens at the time of death. We do not just have one body. The physical body is just one of the seven bodies we have. It is the only gross body that can be felt and seen in space-time. However, we actually have seven layers or bodies or planes of existence. Since these layers have a subtle existence they cannot be seen or felt by the ordinary eye.

Each of the bodies holds a corresponding emotion. For example, the pranic body holds all the desires that arise in life. The mental body holds all the feelings of guilt experienced in life. The etheric body holds the experiences of mental pain felt in life.

When the spirit leaves the body it crosses all the seven body layers. The physical body dies. But, the remaining six bodies do not totally die. If you are holding a lot of desires in your life, all those unfulfilled desires are held in the pranic body. So even though the physical body dies, the pranic body does not die. When the life force leaves the pranic body, the being experiences tremendous suffering. Continue reading “What exactly happens at the time of leaving the body during death?”

Breathing awareness into the desire has the capacity to burn your unfulfilled desires and can dissolve this birth’s karma!

Another important thing, please understand this concept. Assume that in your total sanchita karma baggage, 100 desires are related to your muladhara chakra, the energy center related to greed and lust; 100 desires are say related to swadhishthana chakra, the … Continue reading Breathing awareness into the desire has the capacity to burn your unfulfilled desires and can dissolve this birth’s karma!

How can we clear our Karmas ?

Let me explain the three types of karma from a different angle.

You see, if you take all the possibilities that you are aware of and that are available to you in the cosmos, we call that as agamya. There are all kinds of possibilities. You can become a fish, you can become a snake, you can become a man, or you can become a god. All these are possibilities. We call that as agamya.

There are also other possibilities that are available to you. These are not only within the field of your awareness like the things that you know such as fish, monkey, dog, donkey and man, but also many other possibilities that are unknown to you. Those we call sanchita, the whole range of known and unknown possibilities.

The whole is sanchita and the possibilities that lie in front of you are agamya. You then decide to play only with certain boundaries of these possibilities when you come into this body. That is what we call prarabdha. See when you came down, you decided to play inside certain boundaries. That boundary is what we can call prarabdha. Continue reading “How can we clear our Karmas ?”